


Another Hopeful Day

by jdjunkie



Category: Saving Hope, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Crossover, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-19
Updated: 2012-06-19
Packaged: 2017-11-08 02:47:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/438297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdjunkie/pseuds/jdjunkie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Charlie Harris. Doctor.” </p><p>“Daniel Jackson. Doctor.”</p><p>“Of medicine?”</p><p>“Archaeology.”</p><p>“Oh.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another Hopeful Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Princess of Geeks (Princess)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princess/gifts), [Sid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sid/gifts).



> Spoilers for the first two episodes of season one, Saving Hope.

So many people, and each one of them had a story to tell.

Charlie had never considered that before. Patients were patients. They had medical issues and he dealt with them, usually successfully. He was proud of that. He was good at what he did. But patients equated to case notes and problems and struggles to find solutions. He’d never really taken the time to consider the other things that went into making a patient a human being.

Time was a luxury he didn’t have when it came to saving lives.

Now, it was very obvious to him that every man, woman and child who gave themselves up to _his_ care had people who cared about _them._ Patients were people who had jobs and hobbies. They laughed at jokes, wept at sad movies, railed at paying taxes, loved and hated their lives. It’s what made them ... human.

Of course, he had the time to consider these things now.  It would make him a much better surgeon if he survived this.

When. _When_ he came out of this.

That he was discovering these world-changing, self-evident truths now was more than a little ironic. Actually, this was just one of the many ironies of his present condition. Case in point: He was a physician, yet he couldn’t heal himself.  That was a big one.  A big, annoying as hell, frustrating, internal scream-inducing one. No point in ramping up the angst, though. There was more than enough of that lurking around the halls of Hope-Zion, along with a chief of surgery in a tux with no place to be except wherever here was.

Charlie leaned against the wall of the family room, where husbands, wives and parents waited to hear the fate of their loved ones. He’d never liked the place, with its falsely cheery curtains and months-old magazines. It reeked too much of hope and despair.  He’d never been much good at dealing with either.

Alex was asleep, curled up in the straight-backed chair by the window.  _Had enough of the sympathetic looks of colleagues, eh? Needed to get away and just breathe?_ A soft curl of dark hair fell across her face. Her arms were wrapped tightly around her body, one of them pressed hard against the back of the chair. Pins and needles lay ahead. Paresthesia, to use the medically correct term and he might as well keep his hand in on that front. Alex’s mouth was slightly open, her breath coming in soft, regular exhalations.

_“You snore.”_

_“Charlie!”_

_“It’s okay. I like it. It’s sexy.”_

_“You’ll be telling me next that the associated drool is sexy.”_

_“Okay, I draw the line right there.”_

Charlie smiled. He’d lied. _Everything_ about her was sexy.

“Most people look like death,” Charlie rolled his eyes at his choice of word, “after cat-napping in a chair. You look ... like you just stepped out of my dream.”

“Wow. Romantic.”

Charlie turned towards the voice.  In the far corner, hidden behind the open door to the room, and lounging in a chair just like Alex’s, was a tall, good-looking man.

Charlie did a quick double-take. “Wow. You look ...”

The man tilted his head and batted unfeasibly thick eyelashes. “Can’t deny it. I’ve been joshed about limited gene pools before.” He closed the book that rested on his lap.

Charlie blinked. Man, on top of the shit-load of weirdness that was his half-life, this was just too much. “Wait a second. You can hear me?”

The man pursed his lips and appeared to think about that. “Yep. Shouldn’t I be able to?”

“I’m in a coma, on life-support, downstairs.  Car accident followed by head trauma and accompanying limbo.”

“Right.”

“And you can see me?”

“Well, I did make the limited gene pool comment, so, yeah. I can see you.”

Charlie shoved his hands in his pants pockets. “But you’re not ... dead.”

“Nope. Not right now. Have been, though. Sorta. Couple of times. Not the best fun I’ve ever had.”

Charlie narrowed his eyes.  “Not in a coma?”

“Nope.”

Charlie’s eyes narrowed to the point of accusing slits. “Then why the hell are you able to see and hear me?”

The man placed his book on the low table beside his chair. “Search me. Probably something to do with formerly ascending to a higher plane of existence.”

“Higher plane of ...” Charlie parroted, slowly.

“Formerly. Not now. Back here now. Stuck in the family room of a hospital waiting for the love of my life to finish visiting the former love of his life.” The man checked his watch and then fiddled with the strap, absently. “His ex-wife to be precise. Collapsed while visiting friends. She’s had surgery but nothing life-threatening, thank god. We have special dispensation to visit so early in the day. God knows how he managed to arrange that. His fatal charm, I guess. We’re combining the visit with a trip to Niagara. He thinks it’ll be ... romantic.” The way he said it seemed to indicate he didn’t agree.

Charlie sighed. “If I were corporeal, I’d need to sit down.” None of this was making any sense.

“Sit down anyway. Makes chatting so much more companionable.”

Charlie gave the man a long, appraising look. Fifty-ish, probably, in good shape, definitely. Intelligent, quick-witted, bookish (and not just because of the book he’d been reading) and he wore an unusual wedding ring that was gun-metal gray.

“Charlie Harris. Doctor,” Charlie said, easing into the seat next to the one that was occupied.

“Daniel Jackson. Doctor.”

“Of medicine?”

“Archaeology.”

“Oh.”

“Among other things.”

Charlie tapped the arm of the chair. “I’m thinking you’re good at what you do.”

“What makes you think that?”

“I’m getting to be a good judge of people.”

“Using the time to brush up on your people skills, huh?”

“Or maybe learning some from scratch.”

“People not your thing?”

“I like them well enough. They are my job, after all. I’m chief of surgery here. Just ... never really taken the time to understand them. It didn’t seem important.” Charlie’s gaze drifted across the room to rest on Alex, who shifted slightly in her sleep. “Now, it does.”

Daniel leaned forward, clasped hands resting on his knees. “Look, Charlie. I’ve been where you are. Sort of.  Just ... take the time to learn what you can about yourself.”

Charlie leaned back into the chair. “What if I don’t like what I’m learning?”

Daniel shrugged. “It’s the learning that’s the thing. When you get back into the,” Daniel made air quotes, “ ‘real world’ then you start putting things right. Including yourself, if you find that’s what you need to do.”

Charlie shook his head. “This is all way too ‘out there’ for me.”  Now it was his turn for the air quotes. “I’m all about the science and the practicalities. The doing.  I deal in absolutes. Life and death.”

“No gray areas then.”

Charlie considered that for a while. “Not until now. Guess this ... waiting room ... is as gray as it gets. Decor notwithstanding.”

Daniel smiled, a quick, there-and-gone smile. “I thought it was too ‘out there’ for me, too. Worked though.  Changed me. Largely for the better, I think.”

Charlie thought about that as a silence settled between them, the everyday sounds of the hospital providing a muted background noise. Shifts were changing, life was going on. Some lives were ending. Such was the nature of  ... life.

 “You’re very relaxed about all this. Talking to someone hovering between life and death,” Charlie said eventually. “You’re experiencing something most people would dismiss with a joke or run screaming from.”

“Yeah. This is really not so unusual for me.”

“But you’re an archaeologist.”

“Among other things. I work for the Government on classified stuff that most people would dismiss with a joke or run screaming from.”

Daniel’s reaction suddenly made a lot of sense. It was all Charlie could do not to whoop and holler. At last. Something in all this made sense.

“Shades of gray,” Charlie said, carefully.

“Shades of gray.” Daniel nodded. “You’re dealing with this conversation pretty well, too. Ascension, planes of existence, et al.”

Charlie sighed. “Well, if what’s happening to me is any indication, there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio.”

Alex moved again, murmuring something. She was going to wake up soon, if she wasn’t paged first.

“Is there a coffee machine around here?” Daniel asked.

“I happen to know the location of every coffee machine in the entire hospital. Also, every linen closet, public telephone and stack of bedpans. I’ll show you.”

Charlie led the way into the corridor, took an immediate left and pointed. “It’s awful, but it’s hot.”

Daniel fished some change out of his jeans pocket, made his selection and watched the machine deliver the goods. He lifted the plastic cup to his lips and blew on the coffee. After peering into the depths, he took a tentative sip. “You’re right. Awful.” He made a face, then drank some more anyway.

They wandered back towards the family room, Daniel sipping as they went. “You do _want_ to get back to the here and now?” he asked between sips.

For the first time in their bizarre conversation, Charlie felt angry. “What a stupid, stupid question.”

Daniel made an “it’s really not” face and shrugged. “Some people want to move on. I did. Not that I had much of a choice. Melting from the inside out due to radiation poisoning tends to make the decision somewhat easier. And there were other reasons.” This time, he made a “don’t make me go there” face, so Charlie didn’t.

 “I want to live,” Charlie said vehemently. “ I have every reason to live, the prime one sitting right there in that chair.” He pointed towards Alex as they entered the room. “We were to be married. The accident happened on our wedding day.”

And then he couldn’t talk any more.  The words clogged in his throat, fighting to get out but running up hard against each other and building an unbreachable barrier. He didn’t know if he could cry in his current state of being, if there’d be real tears. That bothered him more than crying in front a stranger, even if that stranger did seem to understand more about all this than Charlie did.

Daniel’s face softened. The empathy Charlie found there was almost too much to take.

“Then you’ll find a way,” Daniel said, gently, nodding towards the chairs. They sat down in unison. Daniel’s eyes crinkled into a genuine, warm smile. “I did.”

Charlie nodded. The ache in his throat eased a little. Perhaps, one day, the ache in his heart would, too.

“Hey ... who are you talking to?” A gray-haired man stood in the doorway, eyes flicking around the room and finally landing on Daniel. He was older than Daniel and wore a matching ring. Good looking. Even at first glance, Charlie could see how the charm Daniel mentioned might have worked on a susceptible member of the medical staff.

Daniel stood up and reached for his book. “Um, just thinking aloud.” He ran his fingers up the spine of the book, his touch gentle and reverent. “How’s Sara?”

“She’s doing great. Says the doctors here are terrific. She’s already bitching about staples and stitches and wanting to go home. Kinda reminded me of when Charlie was born. She says she’d like you to say hi.”

Charlie was taken aback at the mention of the name. Another strange, albeit tenuous, connection.  Alex would never believe this. He was working hard on making her believe stuff, though. The kid’s drawing of the man in the tux was a start. He’d make her understand.

Daniel nodded. “Sure.” He stuffed the book in his pocket. “The doctors are terrific, huh?”

“Apparently.”

Daniel looked directly at Charlie. “I can believe that.”

Charlie rose from his seat. He smiled at Daniel. He liked the guy.  One day, he’d seek him out and tell him so.

The gray-haired guy laid a gentle, guiding hand at the small of Daniel’s back as they left the room. The gesture resonated deep within Charlie. It spoke of familiarity and trust. Of belonging. He missed his lover’s touch so damn much.

Daniel turned back to look at Charlie one last time as he walked away, his eyes smiling.

“You’re gonna love Niagara,” the older guy said. “More cheese than Wisconsin.”

“I don’t like cheese.”

“Since when?”

“Since my vacation is allegedly going to be full of it.”

Their back-and-forth echoed down the hallway. It was oddly reassuring and comforting. It felt ... hopeful.

Charlie turned back to look at Alex who was stretching and yawning herself awake.

“Hey, darlin’,” he said, softly. “Welcome to another hopeful day.”

 

ends


End file.
